The Robotics Business with Fexingo: Automation, Industrial Robots, and Hardware Startups

Lucas and Luna explore a quiet revolution in robotics: training industrial robots entirely in simulated environments before they ever touch a real factory floor. They walk through how simulation-first approaches are cutting deployment timelines from months to days, reducing hardware costs, and enabling robots to handle edge cases that would be dangerous or impossible to train in the physical world...

Episode 28 of The Robotics Business explores how autonomous mobile robots navigate factories and warehouses without GPS. Lucas and Luna break down the technology behind simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), comparing how lidar-based systems differ from visual SLAM using cameras. They examine a real case: a midwestern logistics hub where one company deployed 40 robots using only visual mark...

Lucas and Luna explore the growing challenge of indoor robot navigation—how machines find their way in GPS-denied environments like warehouses, factories, and hospitals. They break down the shift from magnetic tape and lidar to simultaneous localization and mapping, or SLAM, and why companies like Brain Corp and Seegrid are betting on vision-based systems. The episode centers on a real-world bench...

Lucas and Luna examine the small but growing group of robotics companies that have crossed into genuine profitability. Using Intuitive Surgical as a durable example, they break down how the da Vinci system's razor-razorblade model generates consistent gross margins above 70 percent—far above most hardware startups. They also look at Fanuc's decades-long annuity strategy and Symbotic's swing toward...

In this episode of The Robotics Business podcast, Lucas and Luna dive into the world of robotic grocery packing — specifically how one startup, Fizyr, is using AI-powered robot arms to pack an online order of 50 items in under 2 minutes. They explore the technical challenge of picking a wide variety of objects (a bunch of bananas, a jar of pasta sauce, a bag of frozen peas) into a single bag witho...

Berries are one of the last crops to resist automation. A single raspberry has less than a second of optimal ripeness, and a human picker's touch is nearly impossible to replicate mechanically. But a startup called HarvestNow, spun out of a Danish ag-tech lab, claims its soft-robotic gripper can pick strawberries at 90 percent of human speed with zero bruising. Lucas and Luna break down the engine...

In this episode of The Robotics Business, Lucas and Luna explore the rise of microfactories — small, highly automated production facilities that use robotics to compete with traditional large-scale manufacturing. They discuss the case of Bright Machines, a company that raised $400 million to build autonomous microfactories for assembly tasks, and how startups like Instrumental and Righthand Roboti...

Over 50 million tons of electronic waste are generated globally each year, but less than 20% gets recycled properly. This episode explores how robotics companies like AMP Robotics and Apple's Daisy robot are tackling the e-waste crisis with AI-powered sorting arms and disassembly lines. Lucas and Luna discuss the economics of robotic recycling, why e-waste is uniquely challenging for automation, a...

Episode 21 of The Robotics Business. Lucas and Luna explore the frontier of tactile sensing for robot grippers—why it matters, who's doing it, and how a startup called GelSight turned a lab curiosity into a commercial sensor. They break down the core challenge: most robot hands are blind, relying on vision and force sensing. But recent advances in vision-based tactile sensors, like GelSight's gel-...

Episode 20 of The Robotics Business explores the surge in piece-picking robots for e-commerce fulfillment. Lucas and Luna break down why Amazon, Walmart, and other giants are betting on robotic arms that can handle individual items from mixed bins, and the technology behind vision-guided grasping. They discuss the market shift from pallet-level automation to item-level picking, the rise of startup...

Episode 19 of The Robotics Business podcast explores how robot arms are mastering the delicate, high-precision task of smartphone assembly. Lucas and Luna examine a specific case: a Chinese electronics manufacturer that deployed a new generation of force-sensing robot arms to assemble camera modules for a flagship phone. They discuss the technical leap from earlier rigid automation, the cost savin...

Episode 18 of The Robotics Business. Lucas and Luna explore how robotic arms are being deployed in indoor vertical farms—not just for planting and harvesting, but for pruning, pollinating, and quality inspection. They focus on a specific case: a startup called Iron Ox that uses a gantry-mounted robot to tend leafy greens at its California facility. The hosts break down the economics: Iron Ox claim...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna examine how the failed promise of the consumer robot vacuum is finding new life in commercial cleaning. They break down why the sector is projected to hit $14 billion by 2030, how companies like Brain Corp and Avidbots are retrofitting existing machines instead of building from scratch, and why the biggest unlock might be a simple software update. They also discuss...

Episode 16 of The Robotics Business shifts focus from hardware to pricing. Lucas and Luna explore why an increasing number of robotics startups are abandoning upfront capital sales for recurring revenue models. They examine a specific case: a collaborative robot company that switched from a $35,000 one-time purchase to a $2,500 monthly subscription, and how that change affected customer adoption,...

Surgical robots have been around for decades, but they've mostly lived in big academic medical centers. This episode looks at why smaller hospitals are starting to adopt them now, and what that means for patients, surgeons, and the companies building the machines. We focus on one specific system: the Versius robot from CMR Surgical. We discuss its design philosophy, the training model for surgeons...

Episode 14 of The Robotics Business examines how surgical robotics is moving from elite academic centers to community hospitals. Lucas walks through the specific business case: the da Vinci system costs roughly $2 million per unit, plus $2,000 per procedure in consumables, which has historically limited adoption. But new competitors like Vicarious Surgical and CMR Surgical are engineering smaller,...

Episode 13 of The Robotics Business with Fexingo looks at the hidden robotics boom inside recycling facilities. Lucas and Luna explore how AMP Robotics, ZenRobotics, and AI-powered sorting arms are transforming waste processing — and why the economics of recycling finally make automation irresistible. They break down the 'killer app' for computer vision in garbage, the surprising cost-per-pick mat...

Episode 12 of The Robotics Business goes inside the 'dark factory' — a manufacturing facility that runs 24/7 with zero human operators. Lucas and Luna examine FANUC's fully automated plant in Oshino, Japan, where robots build robots for weeks at a time under only remote monitoring. They unpack the economics: the facility operates at 80 percent utilization versus 40 percent for a conventional facto...

Robot arms are getting cheaper, but the bigger shift is in how they're sold. Lucas and Luna explore the rise of 'Robots as a Service' (RaaS) — a subscription model that lowers the barrier for small and mid-size manufacturers. They dig into a case study: Formic Technologies, a startup that leases autonomous mobile robots and robotic arms for a monthly fee of around $8 per hour of operation, no upfr...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore the surprising renaissance in automated welding. While many assume welding robots are old news, a new generation of systems combining vision sensors, machine learning, and force feedback is cracking the hardest jobs: low-volume, high-mix fabrication. We look at how one mid-sized manufacturer — a family-run trailer maker in Indiana — cut rework by 40 percent...

Lucas and Luna explore how robots are quietly moving from factory assembly lines to restaurant kitchens. They dig into the story of Moley Robotics, a London-based startup that built a robotic arm capable of cooking thousands of recipes from scratch. They break down the unit economics: the robot costs roughly $250,000, replacing about three full-time chefs at $50,000 per year each, with a payback p...

In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore how sensor fusion is transforming industrial robotics. They focus on one specific case: Fanuc's iRVision system, which combines 3D cameras with force-torque sensors to let robots adapt to unpredictable parts in real time. Lucas breaks down why traditional 'blind' robots can't handle variance above 0.1 millimeters, and how sensor-packed arms are now used in a...

Lucas and Luna dig into the current slowdown in warehouse robotics investment. After a boom from 2020 to 2023, early-stage funding for logistics automation dropped nearly 40% last year. They discuss why VCs are pulling back, using the specific case of a once-hot startup, 'Pick-It Robotics,' which raised $150 million but recently shut down. Lucas explains the disconnect between impressive technolog...

Collaborative robots — cobots — are the fastest-growing segment in industrial automation, but they're not just smaller, cheaper robot arms. In this episode, Lucas and Luna break down the specific market forces driving cobot adoption: safety standards that eliminate cages, programming interfaces that don't require a PhD, and price points that have fallen below $20,000. They examine Universal Robots...

Episode 5 of The Robotics Business zooms in on one of the hardest problems in robotics: fabric manipulation. Lucas and Luna unpack the breakthrough at MIT's CSAIL lab where a robot named 'Mario' used a novel deep reinforcement learning approach to fold towels, shirts, and even fitted sheets with 95% reliability — a task that stumped industrial arms for years. They trace how the same underlying tec...